


Just gonna break it a little

by TNKT



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bleeding Out, Blindness, Blood and Violence, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 Friendship, Electrocution, Eye Trauma, Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, Gen, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Nosebleed, Post-Canon, Protective Connor, Seizures, Tasers, Torture, Trapped, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Needs a Hug, Whump, good old regulator torture, kind of, nailed to a cross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24277690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TNKT/pseuds/TNKT
Summary: As the superior RK900 android model, Nines thought he had it under control. As a police partner, he thought he was doing his part protecting Detective Reed. What Nines didn't know was how tightly the trap had been sprung and how broken he would be when it finally released him.Inspired by Gryazniy Gari'swhumpy art!
Relationships: Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Upgraded Connor | RK900 & Gavin Reed
Comments: 26
Kudos: 70





	1. Still with us, tin can?

Nines had been investigating a crime scene with Gavin. This wasn't the first murder they'd had to look into recently with the same set of parameters, a gunshot to the head, rough traces of physical assault in the shape of broken fingers, dislocated shoulders and shattered kneecaps. This one was the third. Gavin had recognized the second victim found in similar circumstances ; he hadn't been able to hide that from Nines, who'd then learned through his partner's muttered explanation that the corpse in front of them had been one of the informants Gavin illegally kept in touch with across Detroit. He hadn't alerted the Captain and he'd told Nines to stay quiet about it, because it would've gotten him in trouble if the DPD officially knew about the crimes one of their officers had silenced in favor of keeping an eye on Detroit's underbelly. This third crime, however, left little doubt that someone had started a string of killings and Gavin had let Captain Fowler know of a potential serial killer as soon as they'd confirmed that this was identical to the murder of the last two victims. The captain had wanted more details so Gavin had left to give them at the station, while Nines had decided to look over the scene a second time in the very unlikely scenario he'd overlooked something the first time.

There was nothing, of course. Nines had seen enough and he left the place in turn, and as he started walking away his keen eyes caught onto the two shadows standing on the edge of his vision. He stopped and feigned to look around the place in a wide half-circle as if to get his bearings and noticed the way they instantly shrunk back in the alley. Nines started heading down the street towards the suspicious individuals and heard their footsteps draw back. A faint whisper reached his sensitive ears and it was saying: "Should we go?"

"He's not with it, let's go. Move!"

What had only been growing suspicion instantly solidified into certainty and he broke into a sprint. Almost in the same moment, he heard the two others take off. The hunt was on. Nines' objectives were clear: track them down, neutralize them, make them admit what they wanted with his partner. He had little doubt the "it" they'd mentioned was himself, and the "he" was Gavin. These people were not well-intentioned and it was very likely they had something to do with the murder if they'd expected Gavin to show up there. Nines ran down the narrow streets that snaked between buildings and was catching up to the two individuals which he could now tell were both men. 

"What the fuck do we do?" yelled one of them.

"Just go!" answered the other.

Then, suddenly, they split ways. Nines only hesitated a second before following the one on the left, the one who seemed to know better what they were doing. Wherever he was escaping to, the man wouldn't go far, and Nines would have him say everything he knew about all of this once he took him in for questioning. He was gaining on the distance between them. The man turned around several sharp corners but Nines wasn't shaken off. The android was intent on catching him. He was only a few feet away from his target when they ran out into the larger space that separated the alley they were in from the next. Nines didn't realize it was a trap until he saw that the light spilling over the concrete came from headlights that were much too close, and then the car crashed into him. Nines' solid body dented the hood of the car but he hadn't been prepared for such an impact and the force of it threw him back.

"Fuck!" yelled the man he'd been pursuing. "You fucking maniac, you almost ran me over!"

"Shut up, you're alive."

Nines was already getting back to his feet but his stance wasn't yet steady when the car rammed into him again, and this time a warning showed on his HUD when he hit the ground. Nothing major, just slight damage to the plating covering his side.

"Get it!"

"Fuck, shit-"

Someone scrambled closer but Nines' hand shot out to grab them. The man let out a shriek of mixed fear and pain when the wrist twisted in his grasp, but then there were more sets of footsteps drawing near and Nines promptly swung the human around like a bat. He managed to send him flying into another's stomach and both men bowled over, but Nines was surrounded. They were three individuals still standing and Nines readied his stance for a fight, his facial recognition software making multiple IDs pop up on his HUD which he didn't have the time to fully pay attention to. Sheridan, Philip, Fletcher, Nielsen, Bell- His fist flew out as soon as one took a step closer, and then it was chaos. Nines was confident in his ability to fight them off, even after getting ran over two times, even if they were armed and he wasn't. He dodged punches, disarmed drawn guns with a hand wrapped around the muzzle- at worst, his fingers would get blown off and that could easily be repaired. Unfortunately, he hadn't accounted for one of the weapons to be a taser gun. The shock burned his wires and he froze.

"Got it!" crowed the man- Nielsen- with a victorious grin on his face.

 _Shit,_ thought Nines, right before he was shoved to the ground. He tried to send a message. No such luck.

"Get him inside," ordered someone, and he was hauled up and dragged towards the car by two pairs of hands.

"You think this is a good idea?" dubiously asked one of the men that weren't pulling Nines into the wide trunk.

"It's the second best we've got. Should be dissuasive enough."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Hey, hurry up. We gotta move fast before they find us, it might've sent out a distress signal before you tased it."

 _If only,_ wryly thought Nines. He only felt wry on a surface level, though. This was bad. This was very bad. Where were they going to take him? What were they going to do with him? The trunk slammed shut and he listened to their muffled voice, his limbs still giving occasional twitches.

"You think Reed cares enough for this thing?"

"Are you kidding me? They work together all the time. Even if he doesn't care, he'll get the message."

"The informant wasn't enough."

"He probably thought it was a coincidence. This'll show him it's not."

"Hope we get enough of a head start."

"Yeah, no worries there. By the time they get to the alley and _then_ know where to track us, we'll be long gone."

"Doesn't it have a tracker?"

"Nah. Deviants don't have those anymore. It just stops working in them."

"Huh." 

This was very, very bad. All Nines could hope for was that his systems would recover soon enough from the shock that he'd be able to send out the message before these people did whatever it was they wanted to do with him. The ride was smooth but Nines' head bumped into the inside of the trunk every time the vehicle stopped and took off again. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn't move. His impaired systems wouldn't let him track where they were going, either. Nines hoped it wouldn't be too far away from help.

They threw him out of the trunk in the middle of a hangar. Two of the men picked Nines up by the collar to drag him again and shoved him down to the ground a bit further off to the side. Nines' gaze roamed around the place and he noted it was empty save for some metal bars and wide crosses scattered along the wall.

"What do we do, then?" 

"Just gonna break it a little so the detective gets the message."

One of them chuckled. "You know, back then I never thought androids would be more fun to beat up than humans. They may be a pain in the ass when they work with the police, but deviants sure are entertaining."

"They were already a good way to vent before all this shit happened."

"Better since they're deviant though."

"Quit yapping and get to it," ordered the driver. Sheridan seemed to be the leader. "Don't want to take any chances hanging around here any longer than necessary."

That was all the encouragement they needed to start moving. Nines sent motor commands to his limbs in frantic succession but he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything but watch as one of the group kneeled next to him and studied him. Philip's eyes were dark and glinting with malevolence, a satisfied grin pulling up the corners of his mouth.

"Never put my hands on a model like this before."

"It's a new one, RK900 I think."

He whistled. "Nice. Do you think the components are in the same spots?"

"Only one way to find out."

Nines tried to stop the man, he did, but there was no resistance he could put up to the hand that brutally hiked up his black shirt. Cold air brushed against his bare torso. 

"Hm. Either they changed things, either they made the skin cover up everything."

Philip shifted and tapped the android's chest in several spots. Nines wasn't entirely sure what exactly the man had in mind until he felt the warm palm lay on top of his regulator. 

"Found it."

Dread seized him just before the fingers dug into his body, nails sliding in the space between the rim of the component and his chassis before twisting in one harsh movement. Nines felt the moment the connections between his regulator and the rest of him ruptured, the sickening loss of contact and sudden disappearance of a weight that was supposed to stay in him. Unlike the models before him, Nines didn't start to twitch when the regulator was gone. CyberLife had fixed this issue because they'd judged androids' immediate reaction to removal of their pump as inconvenient, and so the RK900 had been equipped with the means to continue functioning normally for the five minutes following removal. It also allowed the android time to repair itself. Unfortunately for Nines, he couldn't do that. Philip stared at the regulator in his hand and then at Nines with a fascinated expression.

"It's not bugging out. Didn't they use to bug out?"

"Yeah," said Bell behind him.

"Probably an update. This model's the most recent," Fletcher told them. He seemed to know most about androids.

"Well, that's good. That way it can watch what I'm gonna do," Philip said with a sinister smile, and he set the regulator down at his feet. "Ready?"

Nines' systems were finally starting to recover from the earlier shock and he would be able to speak soon, but right now all he could do was powerlessly stare. Philip reached out again and shoved his fingers deep inside the his body and Nines wanted to scream. He didn't move. Couldn't move. Couldn't even roll to the side, much less buck and push the man away from him, couldn't pull those invasive fingers out of his chest. Nines' jaw clenched in revulsion and horror and tried to call for help but the signal failed to connect. It became even worse when the fingers wrapped around the thirium line that normally ran beneath the regulator and _pulled_. A strangled sound escaped the android's throat. He heard Philip hum approvingly above him.

"Anyone got a knife?"

Nines' gaze desperately followed the trajectory of the switchblade which Bell had produced from his pocket into Philip's hand, panic setting in his unresponsive body, stress levels climbing as the blade came closer. He opened his mouth.

"N---" Static crackled in his ears- his own voice. A broken attempt at protesting.

"Yes," said Philip with a dark undercurrent of pleasure to his voice, and the blade disappeared in the hole of Nines' chest. He felt the edge of the blade scrape against the rim, a faint pressure at his center.

< _Warning: thirium leak detected in thirium line #B3-00. Rate 3L/min._ >

The switchblade came out covered in blue and Philip watched in appreciation as thirium instantly started welling up.

"Don't make it leak too fast," intervened Sheridan from his spot where he was leaning against the hood of the car.

Philip annoyedly waved the knife in his direction. "Yeah, yeah, I know what I'm doing."

Nines couldn't help the fear that filled him as he watched his thirium levels start to deplete. Why were they doing this to him? Why weren't they killing him yet? What was the point of dragging it out? And beneath all these questions, Nines knew deep down that the answer was simple: they wanted him to suffer. They enjoyed it. Maybe this wasn't even a matter of warning Gavin but just the way they liked to do things every time they killed someone.

"Look at that," murmured Philip. "Love it when they get those panicked eyes."

Nines realized he'd been nothing but afraid and passive since they'd started messing with him on the floor of this hangar. That _wasn't_ who he was, and he glared at the human with all the rage he could muster. If they thought he wouldn't get revenge for this- Philip moved again and pushed the regulator back into place with a squelch, and Nines gasped out loud at the relief of gaining back his main component. 

"Almost forgot," teasingly said the man. "Wouldn't want you to shut down just yet, that would be a shame."

Philip was having fun with this. They were all having fun with this, Bell and Fletcher hadn't once looked away and Nielsen had a sadistic smirk on his face. Nines wanted to rip it off. He was the RK900, the superior model, and there was no way he was going to let them have their way with him like this until the end. He'd get back at them. He'd make them understand what it felt like to have a piece of them ripped out and their insides mangled. Humiliation and anger burned through Nines' wires and he clenched his hands into fists. In the moment he realized he was able to move his hands again, three messages reached him one after the other.

<Det. Reed: Fowler wants you back at the station.>  
<Det. Reed: Nines?>  
<Det. Reed: The fuck are you?>

He could communicate again. He could communicate again, he could send out the signal he'd failed to twice before, and Nines didn't waste any time sending out his coordinates with an urgent requirement of assistance.

"It's moving," suddenly pointed out Bell.

Philip's black eyes darted down to Nines' hands and he noted: "So it seems. Nielsen."

Nielsen held out his taser gun again and Nines's eyes widened. "Wai-"

The projectiles flew out and Nines barely had the time to feel them land on his stomach before his body seized up. The current flowed across his chassis, deep inside his metal casing, heating up his already impaired systems, his wires, his blood. Nines' head and limbs twitched erratically on the hard, gritty cement and his thirium pressure swelled. It only took a few seconds. Blue blood suddenly burst through his nose and mouth and around the damaged edges of his regulator, splattered across skin and cement. 

"Shit," exclaimed Philip. "Turn it off, turn it off!"

The electricity stopped flowing. Nines continued twitching from the aftershocks that raced through his frame. Wide, harsh streaks painted the flat planes of his torso in liquid blue. Thirium trickled down the android's lips onto the floor at a rapid pace, quickly forming a small puddle that kept growing.

"Ah, fuck."

"I thought you knew what you were doing," Sheridan taunted Philip.

"Shut up, it's not shut down yet. I just didn't think it would overheat that fast," Philip grumbled. "Guess it wasn't fully recovered yet. Might've managed to send out a signal though."

"Then hurry up."

Nines couldn't think anymore. He could only hear the steady fast dripping of his own blood hitting the ground, could only watch with his head stuck at an odd angle the movement of a switchblade opening next to his face.

"Yeah, I know just the thing. Should freak out our detective at least a little bit."

The blade came closer to his left eye. Nines' body was still shaking badly from the electric shock, but it was entirely locked up and he couldn't even blink. Philip angled the tip of the knife so it would prick the outer extremity of Nines' eye, and then he pushed it in with a twisting motion. He felt the cold, unyielding blade slip in a fraction and bump against the rim of the socket that held his eye in place. Philip's lips tightened into a concentrated line and he pushed harder, but the knife jerked back out, scraping along the optical unit as it went. 

< _Warning: minor damage to biocomponent #3369j._ >

"Shit, stop moving," grumbled the man, as if Nines could help the tremors wracking his frame. This time when the switchblade returned, Philip pressed the hilt of it against the bridge of Nines' nose as a lever. Philip's dark eyes were intense as he applied great precision to his movement of slipping the tip of the knife back into inner corner of the android's blue eye, forcing it deeper with a niggling motion that pulled Nines' consciousness close to that single point of _wrongness_. Nines couldn't think, but his lips trembled. Beneath his still features there was an instinctual urge to jerk his head away and scream in horror. They were dismantling him, they were trying to _pick his eye out of its socket_.

< _Warning: minor damage to biocomponent #3369j._ >

"Fuck it, this is taking forever. Here, I'll just shoot its face off," decided Philip as he handed the switchblade back to its owner.

A thin rivulet of blood spilled over Nines' lower lid where the knife had nicked the more fragile part at the very edge of his optical unit and penetrated one of the thinner thirium lines that ran behind it. Something was wrong with him, something was very wrong, and the torment wasn't stopping. Nines had forgotten where and when he was, all he could see was the man next to him pulling out his gun and leveling it on the side of his face.

"Watch it," Sheridan warned from the back.

"The processor's close," added Fletcher. 

"I _know that_ ," snapped Philip. "But it'll be faster this way, and who cares if it ends up shutting down?"

"Shortens the fun," said Nielsen. 

Philip glanced up at him and chuckled, their vicious grins mirroring each other. "You're right, I'll be careful."

The gun clicked next to Nines' temple and from the corner of his eye he saw the red glow of his LED reflected in the metal of the muzzle, the black hole of the barrel aimed directly at the side of his face. He was breathing fast, the bleeding wasn't stopping, the warnings were still lingering brightly in his field of vision. Philip's finger moved and the sound of a gunshot powered through Nines' sensitive ears and exploded in his head, part of his face blown off by the bullet.

< _W49n!nQ.'' mAj0? dama## ## ############ #####_ >

"There we go, much easier." Philip's voice was satisfied. 

Nines couldn't see the man very well, his optical units were failing, the messages on his HUD shifting and twisting in incoherent symbols. There was the sound of cloth moving, something sliding back in place, and then he felt the man's presence closer to his face. A shadow moved across his glitching vision in the shape of a hand and then there were fingers in his _head_. Nines' lips moved at a jerky rythm and his throat worked to let out a broken sound that was nothing close to the scream echoing in his mind while the human rummaged and pulled at the inside of his face. Fingers wrapped around one eye and tugged, and Nines' vision was overwhelmed with a burst of red. He tried to tell them to stop but only managed a ragged groan. The left visual input fizzed out completely when his optical unit was torn off and thrown away, then a fist punched the other side of his face and the remaining eye broke off. The warning messages scattered into lines of red pixels, froze, and then vanished entirely. Darkness fell upon Nines and there were only sound and touch left behind. He felt the fingers scramble his face some more to fetch the piece of him rolling around in his cranium, he noticed the way his breath hitched with every scrape of the back of his head against the gritty floor, he heard Philip's eager breathing, the shuffle of soles around him, the sharp impact of a small object thrown on the ground.

"Okay." Blunt nails tapped his temple where his LED resided. "Still with us, tin can?"

A coherent thought finally ripped through Nines' processor, reminiscent and desperate, of Gavin. But this wasn't Gavin. Gavin wouldn't do _this_. Where was he? Why wasn't he here yet?

"Hey." Fingers impatiently flicked his forehead just above the gaping hole that exposed his processor to the cold air of the hangar. "Answer."

"Sssss---" _Stop. Please stop._

"Ah, good. Nice. Very nice. This one's pretty resilient, I like it."

"Shame we can't take it back."

"Shame," agreed the human. "I think it's about time we set up some kind of scene before we go."

There were sounds of acknowledgement above Nines' head.

"This?"

"Yeah. That'll make for one hell of a show."

"Very symbolic."

"Our detective friend better be thankful for all our hard work."

"This is gonna be good, I almost wish we could record it."

A laugh, and Nines listened as a few of them walked away. Something heavy thudded and then scraped along the floor as it was dragged closer. Nines' body was moved again and propped up against an uneven surface. No, not uneven; a flat surface that was above the ground in some places, like a distinctive shape he'd been laid on- a cross. Someone grabbed his spasming arm and another pair of hands did the same for the other one, and his fingers were pulled open. Nines' breath hitched again when he felt something sharp prick his palm. What were they doing? Were they going to cut his hands? Were they going to- Nines' thoughts stuttered when he felt the heavy blow dealt to his hand, but that wasn't what made him grunt. The sharp thing had penetrated his skin, sharp enough to penetrate his chassis as well.

"One down, who knows how many more to go," Philip said in a joking tone.

Nails. They were nailing his hands. Iron so thin wasn't strong enough to impale Nines' chassis through and through, but he knew even without his HUD to tell him that it would be enough damage to render his hands useless if they did this multiple times. And they did. They drove the nails in his fingers and palms and wrists for several more minutes, reveling in every jolt and choked sound that escaped him. Nines couldn't stop twitching, his body still hadn't recovered from the second electric assault Nielsen had inflicted it. There were voices but he'd stopped listening, he couldn't focus on what the men were saying. Nines' body started responding to some of his motor commands but unlike the first time, his systems had been too damaged to allow him to reach out for help. His comms remained unaccessible. His voice was coming back but it was like he couldn't control it. Nines couldn't stop himself from tensing every time they made him wait for the next impact, couldn't stop himself from letting out a short cry when it landed, couldn't stop himself from shaking his head in futile attempts to refuse what they were doing to him, couldn't choke back the pitiful whine that clawed its way out of his throat when someone grabbed the broken edge of the bridge of his nose to adjust the position of his head and press something to his forehead. 

Suddenly there were no hands on him anymore and the bodies around him had retreated, and Nines could feel something light covering his face, and he could hear his frantic breathing echoing inside his mind and bouncing off the broken remains _inside_ of his head. It was too loud, it was too close to his processor, he was too open, too vulnerable, he could still feel the fingers _in his head_ and he was sure they would never stop brushing up against its insides.

"It might deactivate early."

"It's fine, worse comes to worse it'll remember everything," asserted Sheridan. "It would be better if Reed found it still reactive though, if he cares about it."

"Hope he does. Imagine his face when he finds it like that," laughed Philip, and then a door slammed shut, the metal crash echoing through the space around Nines.

Nines could still hear liquid dripping, it had never stopped trickling down his face. How much had he lost? How much of himself was coating the surface he was lying on? Nines was afraid to know what he looked like when his systems told him he'd already lost over 50% of his blood and would soon be reaching critical levels. His shaking body felt wrong and hot and broken. Weakened, blind, disoriented and afraid, Nines desperately waited for someone to come and find him before it was too late. Someone. Anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey pumpkin!
> 
> So I saw this wonderful [whump piece](https://twitter.com/Gryazniy_Gari/status/1260899044320260097) by Gryazniy Gari and immediately wanted to write a story for it. This is the first time I've physically whumped one of my favorite androids in such a graphic way and I hope you liked how it turned out!
> 
> Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you feel like it!


	2. Hello Reed

Gavin spun around on himself, confused and annoyed when he didn't see any tall metal asshole anywhere on the crime scene. He'd come back here because Nines hadn't answered his messages- they hadn't connected- and Fowler really wasn't happy having to wait around for the fridge to show up so he'd ordered Gavin to bring his ass back to the precinct himself, but there was no Nines to grab and leave with. Aggravated, Gavin clicked his tongue and turned on one of the remaining techs.

"Hey, where the hell's the tin can?"

"The RK900? Left a while ago, I think."

"Where?"

"No idea."

"Fucking..." 

Gavin shook his head and grumbled to himself as he left the tech behind to try and find Nines through his own means. He stepped outside, glaring at his surroundings like that would somehow make Nines magically appear, and took out his phone to call the android again.

"Hey!"

Gavin's head snapped up and he recognized the officer coming close. "Miller? The fuck are you still doing here?"

Chris Miller stopped in front of him and shrugged. "Everyone else already took off, I was last to go and got caught on the way out. They asked me to stay to check some stuff. Anyway, you looking for Nines?"

"Yeah. You know where he went?"

"I saw him head off over there earlier, but I didn't ask him what he was doing. One of the forensics was nearly pulling on my sleeve to get my attention," sighed Miller. "You know how it goes sometimes."

"Yeah, sure. Gotta go." 

Gavin left without sparing the officer another second and angrily strode in the direction he'd been pointed to. What the fuck was the stupid fridge up to now? The station was in the opposite direction and there was absolutely nothing over here worth their time, unless Nines had seen something Gavin and the others hadn't. Gavin's lips twisted in a disapproving line. Of course that would be something the tin can would do, that damn show-off, run to god knows where to get some brand-new evidence and prove how superior he was to the rest of them. Gavin's phone pinged in his hand just as he'd been about to call Nines and his steps faltered to a halt in the middle of the street.

There were coordinates and a very succint demand for help, as if Nines' means to contact him had been limited. Considering Gavin's earlier messages had just now connected, it was likely Nines had been in an area with limited coverage. Just where the hell was he? Gavin tried calling him again but encountered the same problem as before: no connection. Wherever Nines was, the place was probably sketchy as fuck. Gavin shoved his phone back in his pocket and decided he'd head for the location that had been sent to him. If Nines got damaged because Gavin hadn't been there to watch out for him, Connor would go ballistic. Not that Gavin was afraid of the robotwink, but the RK800 _had_ whooped his ass in the evidence locker, and Connor hadn't sounded like he was joking when he'd threatened to cave Gavin's face in if he ever let Nines down as his police partner.

"Fucking hell," he muttered. Fowler was still waiting back at the station, too, the faster he found Nines the sooner they'd get this over with. Gavin went to get a vehicle.

The place wasn't, in fact, devoid of coverage. It was noticeably quiet and Gavin was cautious not to move out in the open; although it seemed empty, Nines wouldn't have sent him those coordinates for no reason. Gavin frowned at the icon with the five bars at the top of his phone. Coverage was fine here, why were his messages to Nines still not connecting? He had a bad feeling weighing heavily at the bottom of his gut and his hand came down to rest on his holster just in case. Gavin came upon some tire tracks as he sidled up to the widest structure in the deserted lot, a hangar that could probably fit about three firetrucks, but there was nothing else of note. He hesitated. Calling for Nines out loud would be dangerous if hostiles were still around, but how else was he supposed to find the RK900 when messages weren't coming through? Gavin stood there for a few more indecisive seconds and then decided he'd at least try to investigate by himself before doing that, and so he followed the direction of the tire tracks inside the hangar. He pushed the heavy metal door open and cool air brushed against his face. It was darker inside which was why the small blinking red light instantly caught the detective's eye.

"Oh, shit," he breathed, and the android jerked when it heard his voice. Gavin didn't want to be right but he could only think of one android who'd end up in this place at this time. He wanted it to be some kind of joke, there had to be a good reason why Nines was lying down with a red LED in the middle of the hangar, but there was a dark shape pooling beneath his body and Gavin had the sinking feeling he knew exactly what it was.

Gavin's gaze quickly roamed around the wide structure to see if he could detect anyone lying in wait, but it was just him and the android on the ground. He let the door crash open behind him and as he hurried inside, daylight spilled in the room and mingled with the blue puddle Nines was lying in. Thirium. Of course Gavin had to have been right about that, goddamn. Why wasn't Nines moving? Why was he just staying on the ground with- with that yellow note stuck to his face and- It was reading _HELLO REED_. Why-

"What the fuck happened?!"

Gavin was only a few feet away and he saw the way Nines recoiled from his voice, saw the way Nines could only twitch with his arms remaining in the same unnatural pose of crucifixion, noticed the nails that had been driven in his partner's hands, the blood covering the lower part of his face and his bare chest. Gavin felt something plummet inside of him when the android's lips moved around broken sounds.

"No, n---, stop, pl---se!"

"Hey, hey, calm down," the human quickly said, crouching at his side. "It's just me, it's Gavin. What's wrong with you?"

He couldn't see Nines' face so he reached out to remove the note. It was obvious that Nines couldn't take it off by himself for some reason or he would've done it already, and the android's body gave a giant shudder when Gavin tugged it free.

"N---"

" _Shit!!_ " shouted Gavin, the shock making him fall on his ass. Nines' face- 

"Stop, st-----," Nines was pleading now, "don't t----ch-"

"What the fuck," mindlessly said Gavin, horror tinging his every word, "what the _fuck?_ "

Nines' face was gone. Where Gavin had expected either wide or glaring blue eyes to meet his own, there was just a gaping hole. They were gone. The sight of the exposed processor was a brutal reminder that Nines truly wasn't human, was a machine, an engineered monster- but it really didn't fucking matter that Gavin had seen broken androids before or that he'd hated them all, because this was _Nines_. Nines who'd remained his partner despite how many of those Gavin had scared off with his shitty attitude, Nines who effortlessly put him back in his place when Gavin disrespected him, Nines who talked down to and provoked Gavin just as easily as he did but who still bantered with him on the good days, Nines who was begging him not to touch him, Nines who couldn't move, Nines who was scared. 

"Ple-----se don't," the android kept brokenly repeating, "my head-"

"Fucking _hell_ ," cursed Gavin, and he quickly got back to his knees next to him. "Nines, calm down, it's me. I'm not going to touch your head, okay? I'm here to help you."

Nines froze and cautiously angled his eyeless face in his direction. His fingers twitched, but that was the extent of his movement. "Gav----n?"

The human tried not to notice the way his heart clenched when he heard the vulnerable way in which Nines said his name. Not Detective Reed. Gavin. 

"Yeah. How damaged are you?"

Nines' eyebrows pinched together and he said: "D---'t look-"

"Fuck, Nines, I know this is messed up for both of us but the way you look isn't what I'm worried about right now!"

Nines wasn't listening, he was trying to turn his head to the other side but visibly couldn't hide his face the way he wanted to. "N----, please!"

Gavin quickly caved in when he saw that they'd go nowhere otherwise. "Fine, will my jacket be all right for this?"

"Don't l-"

"I got it the first time! Fuck's sake," swore Gavin, and he quickly got rid of his jacket to lay it over Nines. "Okay, now calm down and tell me where you're thirium's at cause you've bled a lot."

Nines was quiet for a bit, chopped breaths muffled by the fabric covering his face, and then he said: "G---vin, I don't w---nt to die."

He sounded so scared. Gavin frowned, hating the similar responsive fear that lept up in his chest when he heard Nines' very human reaction to the position he was in. Nines was an android, sure, but Gavin knew that if Nines shut down it was a partner he'd lose. The RK900's answer was all he needed to hear and he promptly hit the dial button on his phone.

"I'm calling for help, just hang on, okay?"

Nines didn't answer. Gavin didn't know what to do, he couldn't touch Nines because that would probably freak him out again, and he didn't know what to say because if Nines was really dying- what _was_ there to say? _I've been a dick to you and I acknowledge that now and I kind of regret it because you're on death's door and I probably should've realized that sooner_? Yeah, that sounded useful, fucking lovely.

Gavin had expedited the call to the EMS and was just kneeling there unsure what to do, telling Nines he'd be okay even though probably neither of them actually believed it, when footsteps rang out close to the hangar. Gavin's head snapped up and he gripped the handle of his gun, tensing, ready to protect both Nines and himself if the motherfuckers who'd done this had decided to come back to the scene of their crime. Connor appeared in the doorway. 

Everything froze.

And then, in a low voice that was loaded with warning, Connor asked: "What did you do?"

Gavin drew his weapon. He wasn't taking any fucking chances with this android. "I didn't do this. Don't come any closer or I swear I'll kill you before you kill me."

"Conn---r?" called Nines uncertainly, sounding more lost than Gavin had ever thought him able to sound.

Connor stepped inside, Gavin tightened his hold on the gun. The android stilled. 

Connor's voice was quiet and measured. "Let me come close to him, Detective. Put the gun away."

"Yeah, right, cause you believe me when I say I'm not the one responsible for this shit. Fat chance," scoffed Gavin.

"Conn---r," Nines called again. "It's n----t him, please..."

Connor started walking again and completely ignored the gun that was trained on him, and he quickly went to kneel next to the RK900. "I'm here now, Nines."

"They- They took my ----es. They t---- my eyes, C---nnor, I'm bleedi---, I d---'t want to die, I-"

"It's okay, Nines," Connor said in a soothing voice. "I'm here, you're not alone. We can interface if that'll help you feel better."

Gavin finally lowered his gun when he decided it was safe enough to do so and watched as Connor reached for the bigger android's arm, and then the slender fingers faltered. Gavin saw the storm on Connor's face when he took in the damage that had been done to Nines' hands. There was a dark tension in every inch of the RK800's body and when he looked up at Gavin, his brown eyes had gone cold and deadly.

"I assumed you called for an ambulance."

"Yeah. They're on their way."

"Why the jacket?"

"He doesn't want me seeing his face."

"Don't l---k," immediately said Nines, and now Gavin could hear beyond the fear in his voice that there was shame as well. 

Nines was ashamed to be seen with his face torn open. Gavin suddenly figured that yeah, he probably would be distressed himself if his own skull was cracked wide enough that his brain would be exposed. Anyone would look monstrous that way, androids and humans alike. Gavin unconsciously lifted a hand to rub his forehead when discomfort prickled at his skin. Nines had asked, no, begged him not to touch the insides of his head and Gavin had a feeling he knew exactly why Nines had been so afraid of that. Those bastards. Gavin's fingers curled into fists. He'd seen androids get destroyed in front of him in the past and he'd even _enjoyed it_ back then, but this was on a whole other level of fucked up and the target had been Nines. The victim was Nines. His partner had been tortured.

"Okay, we won't look," Connor told Nines, his voice reverting to its soft and calming tone so easily it felt like he was just flipping a switch between the two modes of caring and threatening. Maybe he was, hell, Gavin didn't know how things worked inside the guy's mind. "Can we interface? I'll help you calm down."

Connor gently lowered his hand on top of Nines' blood-slicked forearm in silent demand and their skins receded like a wave. Their reactions to the interface were on complete opposites of the spectrum: Connor winced like he'd been shocked while Nines visibly relaxed, even if only by a slight margin. Connor's brow creased in a dismayed frown and he leaned in closer to Nines.

"I'm sorry, Nines. That should never... Look, you'll be all right, I promise you will be. I'm here so I'll make sure of it."

"D---'t go," said Nines in a subdued voice, like he didn't dare to ask.

"I'm staying. I'm staying right here," Connor told him. "I'm waiting for the ambulance with you and then I'll climb on board so I can remain at your side."

"Thank y---."

"It's normal, Nines. I'm sorry this happened to you."

Connor's other hand clenched and unclenched against his thigh and Gavin was pretty sure the android was imagining how it would feel to destroy Nines' attackers.

"...I'm scared," suddenly said Nines with crystal clarity. Two words, no static, and Gavin felt them like a punch to the gut.

"I know you are," quietly said Connor. "I know. The ambulance is almost here, they'll fix you up. You'll get better soon."

There was a moment of quiet and Gavin asked: "How'd you get here so fast?"

Connor looked up at him distastefully, like Gavin was only talking to disturb him, and curtly said: "I was nearby when I received Nines' call for help."

"Okay." 

Gavin said it like he didn't care, but his mind was racing. If only Connor was here and none of the other officers had shown up, then that meant Nines had only managed to send those messages to two people; and he'd chosen Gavin to be one of them. _Fuck._ Gavin felt bad in a way he hadn't for a very long time, because it turned out Nines trusted him like he would any partner and Gavin hadn't been like any partner. He'd been a huge dick the whole time.

"You should've been with him," reproachfully said Connor.

Gavin glared at him and growled: "He's the one who asked to stay behind."

"Then you should've stayed with him," retorted Connor.

"I thought he knew what he was doing! Get off my ass, Connor, don't pretend you and Hank never split up like this. You know what it's like to wanna save time and cover more ground."

Connor narrowed his eyes at him. "Where's the paper."

Genuinely taken aback, Gavin asked: "What?"

"The paper they put on his face, where is it?"

 _Shit, I am so screwed,_ thought Gavin, his gaze flickering to the interface. Of course Connor had seen it. Nines wasn't able to speak correctly, he would've shown him what had happened. Reluctantly, feeling like he was signing his death warrant, Gavin reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled yellow note. "I wasn't trying to hide it, I just removed it so I could-" He stopped himself before saying 'see his face', not wanting to make Nines freak out more than he already had, and instead opted for: "Because I thought it would be easier to talk that way. I don't know why it says what it says. I mean, I do, obviously the people who did this were aiming for me but I don't know who-"

His words died at the back of his throat when he saw the hatred in the android's brown eyes.

"So this _is_ your fault," Connor ground out.

Nines twitched, static jumped forth from beneath the jacket, and Connor's gaze snapped down to the other android. His jaw clenched, and then he laid his free hand on Nines' shoulder and murmured: "We'll talk about this later, Detective. Once Nines is repaired."

"...Yeah. Okay." There wasn't much else Gavin could do but agree.

The ambulance arrived not long after and Connor left with Nines, leaving Gavin behind to his thoughts and the certainty that he was due for another ass-beating like the one he'd received in the locker room. That wasn't even what troubled him most; he couldn't get the gaping hole of Nines' face out of his mind. Gavin returned to the precinct to announce the news to the captain. He felt stupidly guilty as he explained that the attack on Nines had been aimed at him. It wasn't like he could've known it would happen and the culprits would probably have nabbed Nines on any occasion to get their warning through to Gavin. Maybe they hadn't even really cared whether or not Gavin would be affected by it the way he was. Maybe they'd just thought it would be entertaining to hurt Nines, just like Gavin had once found stress relief in the destruction of unfeeling, human-looking machines. He really didn't feel proud of his past self right now. Unease still lingered heavily in his gut at the memory of Nines' exposed processor.

Captain Fowler was not happy to learn about the second victim being one of Gavin's informants, nor to realize that one of his detectives had kept rather illegal secrets from him. Obviously Gavin wasn't going to get away with this.

"We're going to have a talk once this case is solved, Reed." Captain Fowler's voice was a warning.

"Yeah, I know."

So Gavin was probably inches away from getting fired or demoted or some shit like that, but when he went to hide in the usual bathroom stall and slid down the wall, it didn't feel like it was the threat of losing his job that pushed him to the ground but rather the weight of his mistakes. Nines had been tortured just because he was Gavin's partner, and he'd called for help but it had been too late. Gavin put his head in his hands, hating it, hating that he actually cared about any of this, hating that he regretted leaving the crime scene before Nines, hating that he'd finally acknowledged in that dark hangar that the android was truly alive, hating that he couldn't stop recalling the way Nines had been looking out for him every day they spent on the job, hating that Nines would probably be traumatized from this shit he'd gone through. Anyone human would be, and Nines was no different. Gavin's phone buzzed and he instantly wrenched it out of his pocket.

<Connor: Nines is being repaired and will recover.>  
<Connor: However, you and I both failed to get to him in time and that is something we can't ignore.>  
<Connor: We're going to have a talk just as planned, Detective.>  
<Connor: I want to make sure you understand the effect all of this is going to have on Nines' mental state and his behavior in the near future.>

Gavin's jaw clenched and his fingers tightened around the phone. 

"... Fuck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey pumpkin!  
> So, not a super happy ending for sure, but hey at least it's not a tragic one! Nines' alive and Concon's taking care of him and Reed will probably be a lot nicer from now on (or at least he'll try, and that's _if_ he's able to stay at his current position in the DPD).
> 
> Thanks for reading, leave a comment if you feel like it!

**Author's Note:**

> Come by and say hi on [Tumblr](https://lost-tanuki.tumblr.com/post/184765301043/dbh-fics) (link to my DBH fic masterlist), and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/losttanuki)!
> 
> I now have a Discord server called the Pumpkin Patch server, you can pm me on Tumblr/Twitter to join. I'm looking forward to seeing you there!


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